Wendy Chamberlain

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Barker. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone)—my dear friend—for securing this important debate. In North East Fife, about 14.6% of households are off the gas grid. It is not as remote as my hon. Friend’s, but it is a rural constituency. I want to share the experience of one of my constituents that illustrates the reality facing many households today. My constituent uses an electric heater in her daughter’s bedroom rather than turning on the boiler in order to preserve her remaining oil supply for hot water. Her energy costs mean that she has less money to spend on her overall costs, and she is now building up a credit card debt that she is trying to service. She told me: “I can’t take my daughter to visit her grandparents because I have to ration fuel for school runs and food shopping. I make excuses because I’m too embarrassed to admit I can’t afford the 80-mile round trip.” No family should be forced to make choices like those. I have met with Ministers to discuss the impact not only of heating oil prices but of the rising costs of liquefied petroleum gas and red diesel. That is creating additional pressures for rural households, farmers and local businesses. I agree with other Members that while immediate support is essential, we need to focus on long-term solutions. The answer to helping people to cope with high-energy costs cannot simply be to mitigate those costs; we need to do things permanently. That is one of the reasons why my Scottish Lib Dem colleagues in Holyrood, and indeed colleagues in Westminster, continue to advocate for an emergency home upgrade programme. I have to say, however, that constituents’ experiences with schemes such as energy company obligation 4 are really damaging and have eroded consumer confidence in making the move to more zero carbon, zero emission and better heating. Older homes need to be heated to be maintained. It is a real challenge for people. We need to reduce that reliance in the longer term because, as we have heard, families across North East Fife and other rural constituencies absolutely deserve better.